Meeting Alan
by Rae Maxwell
Summary: Drabble - Gen - The two brothers, and their journey from a flowerchild idyll to the Santa Clara midnight.


This is more of a drabble, because it goes nowhere, but everyone seems to have a different idea about the frog brothers, and I wanted to throw in my two cents. The Rainbow Family does exist, and meets yearly in many different countries. I've wanted to attend for several years, but never did get the chance.

"Welcome home." A woman smiled, getting up to hug her sister. They'd never met before, but they were all brothers and sisters here. She and her lover had set up their canvas tent under a spreading maple tree, among a network of tents and canopies, where soft singing, the laughter of children and adults, and the sighs of happy couples could be heard among the bird song of the forest.

This was the rainbow family gathering, a gathering of people from all over America to sing, dance, drum, and love. They were a global family, a tribe bound together by love if not genetics.

Edgar believed it. Here the little boy clad in only sandals and with a fluffy head of white-blonde hair was surrounded by aunts and uncles. All his little playmates were his siblings. To a five year old it wasnt so hard to believe that love was an infinite resource.

At 15, he no longer believed. A couple years later, they'd dropped out of the hippie culture, and dissapeared from the rainbow family. His parents had found a different way of being. One that relied more and more on grass and alcohol, until they slept 16 hours a day, and spent their waking hours so high they could barely get off the couch, let alone run the store.

The only part of the family that they held onto, was Alan.

When Edgar was 9, one of mother's rainbow sisters had introduced them to a new little brother. The new boy was taking in the forest with wide dark eyes, and solumnly nodded to Edgar. He didnt have a name, so he became "Hey you!" in endless games of hide and seek, wolves and rabbits, and complex horror and police stories where the monsters eventually ate the police and G-men, saving the day. Alan had said very little, communicating in nods and shakes of the head. Nobody was surprised when they had found the two little boys sharing a blanket that night, and every night of the gathering. When it was time to pack up, there was no question that the new boy be left behind.

As they had driven their beat up VW bus along the dirt roads back to civilization, Edgar's mother had looked back at the two boys loose in the back, poring over a comic book together. "So, if you're staying with us, I think you need a name. Do you know what you want?"

The little boy had shaken his head.

"Batman!" Edgar had suggested.

The new boy just frowned.

"Dracula!"

That had earned Edgar a smack from his new little brother.

Their mother had chuckled and looked at the book that was already open in her lap. "How about Alan? Edgar..." She pointed to her first son. "Alan..." She pointed to the second. "Poe." She held up the book.

"Batman." Edgar maintained. "Bruce Wayne?"

The new boy jumped up and took the book, looking it over and then handing it back with a nod.

She smiled. "Alan Frog."

"Alan Frog." Alan repeated, pleased with his new name.

It had stuck. Alan had begun by speaking only to his brother, only gradually warming up to their parents. Alan didnt know exactly how old he was. He'd never had a family long enough to celebrate a birthday. Sometimes he seemed older, knowing things about girls and life that Edgar had been sheltered from, but it was Edgar teaching him to read and write by stepping him through every issue of Batman they owned. Eventually they settled on twins. They celebrated their birthdays together.

Alan had met their parents just in time to see them begin to drift away. It was fun at first, as mother stopped dragging them out of bed for early morning nature walks, stopped making them sit for home schooling lessons, or attend boring speeches and marches on the environment and native rights. They got to eat whatever they wanted, stay up late at the comic shop watching horror movies, and bedtime soon became a thing of the past.

The first time there was no food in the house, mother swore she'd just forgotten, and it wouldnt happen again. It did. It went from being monthly, to every day. Edgar and Alan quickly figured out how to pick up the slack. Mother and Father were too tired, too sick, too blazed to do the shopping, to open the store, or to note that their 12 year old children were behaving more like parents than they were.

In a town like this, nobody batted an eye at the two teens running the boardwalk comic book store until midnight while their parents sat unconcious behind the counter. It was a carnie town. Runaways no older than the Frog Twins begged, stole, or sold themselves all over the boardwalk. Child acrobats as young as 6 walked tightropes and bent themselves into pretzles for the price of a two dollar ticket. By the definition of Santa Carla, Edgar and Alan should have been old enough to vote.

And it was two 15 year old adults that were running the store when Sam swaggered in one hot california night...


End file.
